The invention relates to a printing machine and method for a storage medium notably of plastic card type and the storage media printed according to the method.
It relates more particularly to a machine and method for graphic printing, notably colour and high-quality, for a storage medium.
Graphic printing means the production of surfaces having an aesthetic effect with a decorative or photographic design, etc. as opposed to the on-line printing of alphanumeric characters.
The invention applies to all card applications and in particular to plastic cards such as payment cards, credit cards, telephone cards, mobile telephone cards and authentication cards whether they are cards with a magnetic strip and/or storage cards.
Storage cards have an electronic micromodule containing an integrated circuit chip with contacts exposed on the surface or contactless, with one or more memories and most often a microprocessor or a magnetic strip.
The invention also applies to smart cards with contacts exposed on the surface or contactless or to cards with an electromagnetic antenna and/or with an integrated circuit chip.
In the remainder of this document, for simplification, the terms storage medium, smart card or plastic card will be used indiscriminately to designate a smart card and/or magnetic and/or electromagnetic type medium made of plastic or cardboard or paper.
The high-quality graphic printing market for media such as cards is today exclusively dominated by traditional technologies, these being offset printing, serigraphy or flexography.
These technologies, well adapted to mass production, are on the other hand not adapted to media which have surface level differences, notably the embossing on credit cards. Furthermore, they can damage the electronic circuits which might be contained by the card as a result of the pressure exerted on the media, notably as regards the offset printing technology. These technologies are not simple to use since they do not allow printing of different information from one medium to another presented in succession continuously on a printing line.
During the past few years, a new generation of electrophotographic equipment has appeared which makes it possible to modify, more or less simply, information to be printed “on the fly” (that is to say during operation of a printing line) by means of pre-designed computer programs. This equipment has the drawback of introducing electrostatic charges which could damage the electronic circuits contained in the medium.
It also has the drawback of exerting pressure on the medium as previously and requiring good surface flatness of the medium.
In addition, these solutions are only adapted to applications in which the media to be printed are in the form of rolls or sheets of large dimensions.